The Crisis Ain't Over Until The Fat Lady Sings

Apparently, I learned from Fraser Nelson, the G20 caper was held at the Frankfurt Opera House. The original Alte Oper was reduced to a shell in 1944 by some of our American friends who were then just down the road, how we cheered them at the local Victory Parade in 1945, and not rebuilt for some time.

Now there is a big new Opera house, winning awards for its productions. The Alte Oper has been restored as a concert hall and the standards are very high. The G20 were given a treat in the shape of a concert conducted by Claudio Abbado. He is one of the best and we have seen him in action and on Sky Arts 2 a good many times.

Born in Milan, he has La Scala, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra on his CV.

He was just the person to be on the podium with Italy under the cosh and its Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi heading for the exits.

The trouble with the G20 is that too many of those involved are not only compromised or seriously affected by their recent track records in past dealing with the collapse of systems but they are up for election shortly, or under threat or up against entrenched vested interests.

For the USA, the President has already begun his election campaign that will last a wearying twelve months, Sarkozy is due to face the people, Merkel has trouble and Cameron’s coalition is looking shakier by the week. Italy and Greece we know about but there are others frantically making personal financial arrangements for their impending retirements.

Our UK Parliament being filled with student politicians, former PR people and lobbyists, lawyers and media people largely unable to fill in an accurate expenses return is not a reliable body from which to draw any government, not just a polity going in serious decline.

The US Congress on the other hand whilst being more broadly based is almost all on the payroll of one lobby, financial interest or other interest group. As they are all going to face an angry electorate in the next few years they are doing their best to put the blame onto others, any others.

The G20 is always going to be weeks, if not months behind events and the way things are going. Even if they were competent, reliable and well informed the immensity of the task might be too much. They are none of these things. The key player is Merkel and the big aria is yet to come.

It was in 1937 that the Frankfurt Opera premiered Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” (lots of it on Youtube and Wikipedia) that begins and ends with the chorus “O Fortuna” and includes ditties such as “They who here go dancing round”, “I lament the wounds that fortune deals” and “If the whole world were but mine”.

The G20 audience, however were given some Mozart and the rest. Perhaps “Carmina Burana” may have touched too many nerves.

Hell Is Other People

The row of the week over the excess of comings over goings that have embroiled the Home Secretary, the former head of the Border Agency and others ought to be instructive for a number of reasons because it features so many of weaknesses and insanities of our present ways of government.

The special weakness is because of the media need for simplicity and to have issues put into slots and the equal need for politicians to deal with only one thing at a time because that is all they are able to do results in separation of related issues.

In fact it is all much more complex and is interwoven with a number of current other questions that are demanding attention. They may seem to be separate but they are not. The consequence is that what should be a seminar turns into something more like a student riot.

If you look at the question of airport capacity, hubs etc., the need for airlines to stay in business, the tourist industry, the higher education industry, employment policy, the benefits system and Europe, they all affect migration matters. We do not plough much money into real research, only into retailing recent history together with ideas and assumptions from the past.

For airlines to function, stay solvent and even grow they need passengers and airports. The more people they can put into aircraft and the more that can be moved cheaply through facilities designed for mass transport the happier they are.

As this is associated with top business people, but also families, ordinary working needs, with persuading large numbers that a holiday must entail flights and that the beaches furthest away are the most desirable it creates a large market. Moreover, all these people on landing in the UK want to be on their way as soon as possible.

This creates major political imperatives to subsidise airports and flying and in particular ensure easy mass transit at public expense on the ground and other communications. So the numbers become very large. When I walk along the road to town the vapour trails tell me that in the few minutes it takes there are thousands of people up there above me.

In the era of cheap oil and with the growth of mass air transport the idea that the tourist industry is a good thing has been an easy get out for trying to plan economic activity for many places. Clearly, those that are sandbars in the ocean unable to either grow or make anything will not be able to support more people without money coming in and being spent if the population can increase.

Most people in the UK have bought into the notion that tourism is essential to the economy and not simply an add on for quaint places and less populated areas. Because so many of us go to places which exist only by tourism it is easy to assume that it might be a good thing for us.

Similarly, the belief that any higher education is good so long as it is post 18 and attracts students has created a large sector for that purpose. This has gone beyond the point where the taxpayer can stand the racket, which leads to awkward choices. One is that the UK students might pay more another is to market UK provision to overseas students as desirable.

Clearly if large numbers of people are being invited in because we want or have come to need their money and some decide to stay it is not only inevitable but somehow seems unkind to insist on throwing them out once they have put in a lot of cash to keep us going.

Many foreign students are from nations with surplus males and their piece of paper will buy them at home only middling clerical work at best at local incomes. They will often have a single life in a corner in a crowded home somewhere where white collar jobs are short in supply. Little wonder that they like to stay in the UK, draw benefits when needed and can live free from the restraints of the home cultures.

Around a decade ago when at a meeting discussing the world environment the speaker talked about the “footprints” of major urban areas to indicate how much of the world’s resources were required to keep this city conglomeration or that alive. The subtext was that the uncontrolled growth of many areas was not sustainable.

There was one man who popped up to comment, one of the Prime Minister’s close advisers to declare that UK immigration should be unlimited and there should be no restrictions for all sorts of worthy reasons. That the UK has a large number of urban areas did not worry him, it would all take care of itself.

Later we had major reorganisations of government departments and a lot of work was devolved from the civil service to agencies of all descriptions. Many of these seem to be exercising power without responsibility so if the Borders Agency is doing the same it would be nothing new.

As the heads of so many of these bodies at present were appointed by the previous government then this will not help to try to brings things back together again.

Then there is Europe and the power we have handed to it and the added difficulties of trying to manage to deal with their policies and decisions. These have brought additional large numbers into the UK in recent years, substantially in the lower income levels.

Apparently, there has been a flood of Greek money into London in the past few months taking advantage of our arrangements for the better off to rescue their finances from the disaster to come. It is likely that we may have numbers of Greeks coming in to join those already here to follow the money.

Quite the worst event if international finances deteriorate will be the mass migration that the UK government and especially the opposition do not want to see. It is all those older UK citizens who went away to sunnier climates in the last couple of decades returning spent up, homeless and angry.

Will we welcome them in the same way that we do the tourists, the students and the financiers?

Restore The Ottoman Empire

The past is full of examples of how things might have been different, if only this or that had been changed. One of these is that the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed just before the immense wealth under the soils of it vassal territories became the staple fuels of the world economy.

If by one means or another, at the centre of the Empire the rulers had been wiser, better equipped and more determined they had managed to survive, remain a real power and avoided becoming involved in World War I. They might have stopped the dismantling of the Empire and its loss largely to western powers.

With the wealth that they were literally able to tap what future would that have brought? Would we really be that much worse off? The Ottomans would have been able to stop the later wars starting by simply turning off the pipelines at an early stage. It is very likely that by 1918 they would have been able to dictate the peace that ended the first war.

There were some who argued that for all its faults and bouts of foolishness the Ottomans were a source of greater stability and enabled other states to deal with one overall authority instead of the present multiplicity of petty warlords. Even the Greeks may wish to rejoin.

Perhaps a visionary somewhere might seek to create a new joint authority in the Middle East. It would be a counterweight both to the failing EU and the erratic course of US ambitions and errors. Because of the belief systems it would have within it and the differing cultures it would not be the same as the EU.

It could be a political force to balance Russia and China in a way that India cannot and nor can Brazil or other large powers. If it could achieve both the ability to rule with a sensitivity to the needs of its many peoples then it could act as a catalyst for dealing with the many divisions of these other powers.

If for example it managed to contain rampant usury and demand a moral dimension to international finance it would do us all a favour. If it released science from the control of the mega corporations who have so distorted learning then the medical progress of the old Ottomans could be restored to the present.

Who could be the man to do all this? Tony Blair, your time has come with perhaps Mandy as the Grand Vizier, Gordon as the enforcer, Scimitar Man and Big Ed as the keeper of the harem, after a minor operation. But who would be the Janissaries?

Regretfully, they would not be for me, the Varangian Guard are more in my line.

Waving Goodbye To Tourists

There was a brief news item yesterday; overtaken by more Olympic matters later, that suggested that for next summer at present, the bookings for tourists in London are much reduced. It is said that they are being put off by the prospect of increased prices because of The Games.

Normally, I would amongst the first to charge the Olympics with the guilt for this alleged misfortune, but in this case it goes beyond a “Not Proven” verdict, the nod to Edinburgh’s claim that they will benefit. However, whether the attraction of the most expensive tram lines in history will work is another matter.

With sixty plus years of traipsing around London from time to time back to the 1940’s to recall, it is not a matter that London in 2012 will cost a lot, it already does and in the last decade has become rapidly worse.

“Spending a penny” was once a statement of fact for doing natural functions in public toilets and then discriminatory in that men paid only for when it was required to sit whilst women, who always sit paid for both the fore and aft functions. Now in some London toilets it is 50p for entry, men and women, or 120 old pence. Whether inflation is the right word for this is doubtful, but it is typical of the rise in costs.

Normally, extractive industries are described as “primary” and refer to taking resources from the ground. Then there is using them, which is secondary, whilst tourism has been classed as a “tertiary” service industry. But in our new money based and financial world it may be that tourism has become very much an extractive activity.

There are figures quoted that tourism has come to amount to 15% of the London economy and it is possible to believe it when just looking around at all the hotel rooms that have been created, the numbers and types of food outlets and the amount of retailing now provided.

The trouble with extractive industries is that there is a pattern. First they are profitable in the early stages of expansion to meet increasing demand and then there might come a “peak” of production. When that is passed not only do the stresses of production take their toll but a combination of rising prices and reduced take up can occur whatever the laws of supply and demand might suggest.

What does strike me is that central London now for some reason has lost its way, has become less attractive and the hordes of people apparently simply milling about have become a deterrent to enjoyment. Unless you have serious money to spend you are fed a diet of processed food and pay a heavy price for anything to drink.

When we see the groups of blank eyed people being marched about, the coaches with tired groups hoping against hope for at least one decent night’s sleep; the endless noise and the mingling of the mob, what are they here for? It is not the haven of Heathrow or the gardens of Gatwick that is the draw. It is a “heritage” now looking very tatty and at very high prices.

As the world economy changes so will tourism. With so many on middle incomes being squeezed, savings eroded, pensions diminished and others with risky futures just how much tourism can there be in a future when travel costs increase with fuel and other price rises? In the last couple of decades millions of people have visited. Just how many have gone back to say to others that there are better places to go to?

Additionally, how many of the younger generations will have much time for or interest in our particular brand of heritage and media culture? The Games may well be the last hurrah for London tourism and it will go into a decline that might be slow but could well be steep.

The implications of this are interesting if anyone cares to think about it.

Spending Other Peoples Money

The Guido Fawkes blog does not relate much to other bloggers. It is part of his bread and butter and understandable. Also, he normally goes for short and punchy pieces to keep the attention and move the story on. You know when you look it will short and acid.

Today, Sunday, however, he went long. A former investment banker he knows what it means to go short. The subject of his post is the Michael Lewis book, “The Big Short” which attempts to show what has been going on in the boiler rooms of the trading houses.

Briefly, they have been taking huge risks with big money and this has been other peoples. When it went bad, because of the politics and the involvement of politicians now we all have to pay.

Here is the link, it is worth reading and even better saves me the job of trying to explain what Michael Lewis has to say:

http://order-order.com/2011/11/06/moral-markets-and-other-peoples-money/

Personally, I am glad to see that there are better informed people on the inside who have described so well what some of us have suspected.

The whole business went out of control and the question now is can it ever be brought back to any reality, or will the whole shebang just go up in flames?

It was Guy Fawkes night yesterday. On Discovery was a programme trying to show what would have happened had he managed to light the fuse in 1605.

There would have been nothing left.

Lies, Lies, And More Lies

It is a commonplace to suggest these days that we have an “information overload”. That is from the wealth and variety of sources there is now so much to read and study on almost any subject that it is impossible to either absorb it all or really understand what is going on out there.

This starts from the basic assumption that all this material is either reliable or is intended to be reliable. This can lead to difficulty. I may well believe that the moon is made of green cheese and can cull sources from history to support my case. But the weight of evidence would be against me.

Therein lies a problem. The weight of evidence may be in one direction for a number of reasons but as we have learned too often might well turn out to be wrong because there is a built in assumption or theory that turns out to be far from the case.

Think of ulcers and their treatment. In the past it was believed that bacteria could not exist in the stomach or the gut. When a backwoods Australian decided to see if it did the consequence was to undo a great deal of medical practice and theory.

This is science and even in this sphere it is necessary to be careful about what is said to be or not to be. With increasing reports of now how much “science” is controlled by particular interests who want the results to go their way and therefore both the honesty and reliability are in question then these are troubled waters.

When it comes of politics, finance, economics and the realms of “social studies” and the rest in our modern world it is all to play for. In the past the desire for rational analysis and reliable information led to a hunger for figures and facts. For the most part in the early stages the intention was to be honest but as soon as politics was involved then the use made of them became increasingly dishonest.

Essentially, there are three categories of information. The first is that which is intended to he an honest assessment or statement of what is known from which conclusions are offered which are supposed to relate to the information.

Even with this category the information and conclusions are only as good as the original data. If this has taken time to collect and work on then by the time it appears things may have moved on. Whilst the data is not “false” but maybe has flaws by the time it becomes available it may no longer represent reality.

The second category is information put out as data but which often is more opinion or information twisted or used to present support for a policy, action or idea. Often the data might be incomplete, distorted or ordered in presentation to make a case rather than be a rational and impartial analysis.

The third category is information which is deceptive. There are two classes of this, one is material known and intended to be a deception. The other and the very dangerous kind, is where people have in fact deceived themselves to justify what they are doing. That is acting more in hope or theory than knowledge.

When you have a group of politicians or financiers who have more or less abandoned the first two categories and have come to rely almost entirely on the third then you have deep trouble. This is worse when you have the lethal mix of the two kinds that was characteristic of the Blair/Brown years and at present of the EU and high finance in the USA.

Given that so many regimes in the world are deeply corrupt and that so much of finance is about the economics of extraction when their leading representatives come together to decide on the fate of the world when faced with a chaos of their own making then their deliberations are entirely based on false data and false premises.

They do not know what they are talking about or why so the result is likely to be chaos, or rather worse chaos than we have at present.

Are You Looking At My Bird?

Estimates from a number of places towards the East suggest that in many states the number of young males in the frantic age ranges for female company now exceed those available by a substantial amount because nature has not been allowed to run its course.

Of those many fewer females who are allowed to exist there will be a proportion, greater in some places than others who are withdrawn from what might be called the “open market” for internal family reasons.

They are needed domestically in the parental home or on the farm or because of religious beliefs. Also here and there are other reasons why women are shielded from the full force of male attentions and removed from ready contact.

Those UK males forced to spend time in grim garrison towns in the past will realise the implications of this. When there are a lot of loose men and a serious shortage of loose women, broadly defined, there is always trouble of one sort or another.

Recently, some historians looking for reasons for one upheaval or series of events have wondered whether some of the happenings of history might not have their origins in past situations of this kind rather than fine philosophies or higher thoughts.

One place that occurs to me is Boston, Massachusetts in the late 18th Century. There are British troops garrisoned there (see above) and it is a port with both mariners from trading vessels and seamen from Royal Navy ships. It attracts migrants from many parts of Britain and Ireland, the great majority male.

Add to that the settled townspeople are almost all deeply religious and worship in many churches that demand high standards of faith and personal conduct. So their womenfolk and female servants are closely guarded and watched over day and night. They take great care over the marriages they make.

In short, a lot of loose men, many with money competing for the few loose women about and a situation in which there are many more losers that winners. The main losers are local young men who are priced out of the market for the few females who are more available.

Inevitably, there is trouble and a natural, literally natural, desire amongst young Bostonians to see the British go home. Apply this logic to many other places and times of serious trouble in history and see how often it might have occurred and where. There are many more of them than you might think. You could try humming “Lili Marlene” while doing it.

Now, here is a test of your skill and judgement. If you are a surplus frantic male where there are very few loose women and you are a poor catch in your local marriage market to where do you go? Which country advertises the ease of access to its young females (and others) widely on the net and on TV and has more or less open borders?

All you have to do is hop on the back of a truck.